Number To Word (Arabic Version)

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Introduction  

In this article, I will talk about converting numbers to written words in English & Arabic (Tafqeet as pronounced in Arabic).

Background

I was in the middle of programming my project when I needed a code to convert a number to written text.

Our project is mulltilingual, so I needed two versions: one for English and one for Arabic.

I googled “Number to Text” or “Number to Word” and I found a lot of code to convert number to written words for English language and many of them worked fine.

I also found code to convert number to words for Arabic language, but unfortunately many of them didn’t work as expected!

So I have decided to go the long way to build a class to do the conversion to Arabic & also added English language support.

Here is a screen shot of a test project that uses the class:

Using the Code

I have to mention that I used code written by Justin Rogers from this link as a start: http://weblogs.asp.net/justin_rogers/articles/151757.aspx

This article contains code that does a good convert for a decimal value into its equivalent English words, but numbers from my application were actually money amounts, so I needed to add currency names to it (our project is also multinational, so I had to build the string dynamically from the country’s currency).

This was the easy part after I made a few small changes to Justin’s code to fulfill my English-Number-To-Words requirements.

Now comes the complicated part: converting numbers to written words in Arabic language!

Arabic language is very complicated, and when it comes to converting it to words, I think it is the most difficult language because it has so many rules that depend on the “number” state and the “counted” state.

For example:

The number one & two matches the counted in its feminine state, where the numbers from 3 to 10 are contrary to the counted, etc.

So I have used one method to determine a digit feminine status using its group level & Currency Name Feminine field status. Here is the method:

private string GetDigitFeminineStatus(int digit, int groupLevel)
{
    if (groupLevel == -1)
    { // if it is in the decimal part
        if (Currency.IsCurrencyPartNameFeminine)
            return arabicFeminineOnes[digit]; // use feminine field
        else
            return arabicOnes[digit];
    }
    else
        if (groupLevel == 0)
        { 
            if (Currency.IsCurrencyNameFeminine)
                return arabicFeminineOnes[digit];// use feminine field
            else
                return arabicOnes[digit];
        }
        else
            return arabicOnes[digit];
}

The whole convert process depends on dividing the number into Group Levels. Each group contains 3 digits & these levels are numbered as in this example:

Number: 987,654,321.345
345: Group Level -1
321: Group Level 0 
654: Group Level 1
987: Group Level 2 

This is accomplished by this code:

Byte group = 0;
while (tempNumber >= 1)
{
    // separate number into groups
    int numberToProcess = (int)(tempNumber % 1000);
    
    tempNumber = tempNumber / 1000;
    
    // convert group into its text
    string groupDescription = ProcessArabicGroup
    (numberToProcess, group, Math.Floor(tempNumber));
    
    group++;
}

Then we have to process each group & convert it to its text depending on its group level.

Inside the ProcesArabicGroup method, we check for the special case for 200 as it has its special rule in Arabic:

if (hundreds > 0)
{
     if (tens == 0 && hundreds == 2) // ???? ??????
         retVal = String.Format("{0}", arabicAppendedTwos[0]);
     else //  ?????? ???????
         retVal = String.Format("{0}", arabicHundreds[hundreds]);
} 

Also the number 2 has another special rule which is discussed by this code:

if (tens == 2 && hundreds == 0 && groupLevel > 0)
{ // This is special case for number 2 when it comes alone in the group
    if (_intergerValue == 2000 || _intergerValue == 2000000 || 
    _intergerValue == 2000000000 || _intergerValue == 2000000000000 || 
    _intergerValue == 2000000000000000 || _intergerValue == 2000000000000000000)
        retVal = String.Format("{0}", arabicAppendedTwos[groupLevel]); // ?? ???? ???????
    else
        retVal = String.Format("{0}", arabicTwos[groupLevel]);//  ?? ???? ???????
}

For group numbers over 20, it is considered as complicated of 2 digits so each one will get its own converted text.

int ones = tens % 10;
tens = (tens / 10) - 2; // 20's offset
 
if (ones > 0)
{
    if (retVal != String.Empty)
        retVal += " ? ";
 
    // Get Feminine status for this digit
    retVal += GetDigitFeminineStatus(ones, groupLevel);
}
 
if (retVal != String.Empty)
    retVal += " ? ";
 
// Get Tens text
retVal += arabicTens[tens];

Also Arabic language is sensitive to currency names which also depends on the number state so I had to add four different names for the same currency name to support all states. Their fields are used at the end of the method when constructing the final String:

if (_intergerValue != 0)
{ // here we add currency name depending on _intergerValue : 1 ,2 , 3--->10 , 11--->99
    int remaining100 = (int)(_intergerValue % 100);
    
    if (remaining100 == 0)
        formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic1CurrencyName;
    else
        if (remaining100 == 1)
            formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic1CurrencyName;
        else
            if (remaining100 == 2)
            {
                if (_intergerValue == 2)
                    formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic2CurrencyName;
                else
                    formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic1CurrencyName;
            }
            else
                if (remaining100 >= 3 && remaining100 <= 10)
                    formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic310CurrencyName;
                else
                    if (remaining100 >= 11 && remaining100 <= 99)
                        formattedNumber += Currency.Arabic1199CurrencyName;

I have created one class to simplify the process, it is called CurrencyInfo which contains the definition for Currency object. It has the following properties:

As you can see from the table, it is very easy to setup any other currency by filling the specified fields.

Points of Interest

I hope this was helpful to you.

Please feel free to correct/suggest any modifications to the code.

History

• 27^th September, 2010: Initial post
• 9^th April, 2011: Fixed a small issue (noted by one member) in the solution attached to the article
• 5^th May, 2011: Added VB.NET equivalent code for the article
• 17^th February, 2012: Fixed a small bug in the code